Blundering through Georgia: The 4th Indiana Cavalry and McCook’s Raid

To Lieutenant William H.H. Isgrigg of the 4th Indiana Cavalry, the blunders of McCook's cavalry raid in July 1864 occurred after the cavalrymen had completed a round of destruction, then waited around for hours before moving on to their next mission. The excessive delays gave the Confederate forces time to gather their troops and eventually corner the Federal horsemen. By July 30th, they were well and truly trapped. 

    "We attempted to go around them but were only led into a trap where some of the hardest cavalry fighting of the war took place," he wrote. "Up to this time, I had not lost a man but here I lost eight men captured on the first charge. In a few minutes afterwards, they charged our pack train and I lost four more men. In this charge, they cut off our brigade entirely from our force. We made several charges to gain the command, but finding it useless, we had to give up that part of the work and look for some way to get out of the country and to keep from being captured. This we did by pressing a Negro as a guide to take us to the Chattahoochee River where we finally arrived without losing another man. We arrived at the river at 10 p.m. but found nothing but three small canoes to cross in. We first sent over our saddles in the small boats and then drove our horses into the stream so they could swim out on the other side."  

    Lieutenant Isgrigg with the survivors of his company made it into Federal lines; he had started the raid with 25 men. He ended it with 11. His description of McCook’s Raid first saw publication in the August 18, 1864, edition of the Aurora Journal.

The Model 1860 light cavalry saber was the preferred weapon for short range combat. 

Vining’s Station, Georgia

August 2, 1864

          I will write a few lines this morning for the benefit of those who have friends in Co. B. Ere this you have heard of McCook’s cavalry raid through the rear of Atlanta. This raid started on the 27th ultimo from near this place and crossed the [Chattahoochee] river at 3 p.m. on the 28th, meeting but a few ford guards who fell back on our approach.

          Just at sundown of this day, we made a charge and succeeded in taking Palmetto Station on the Montgomery & West Point Railroad. We destroyed the railroad track for three miles, burnt a train of cars, and destroyed several thousand dollars’ worth of government stores. At this place, our blunders began. After we had done all the damage we could, we stopped for two hours instead of starting off as soon as we got through. The cause of this delay will develop in due time.

          By 10 p.m. we were on the road to Fayetteville. It was raining as hard as I ever had the pleasure of seeing rain fall. At 11:30, we came upon a train of wagons belonging to General [Clement H.] Stevens’ headquarters at White River. This we destroyed and killed some 500 mules. We found wagons camped all the way from here to Fayetteville, two or three in a place, all of which we destroyed before arriving at Fayetteville at daylight on July 29. Here again we found government stores which were soon in a very warm condition. Here again we stopped for four hours when all we had done was accomplished in half an hour.

          At 8:30 a.m., we are again driving through the country, taking wagon after wagon until we have destroyed something near 500 wagons, all heavily loaded with fine clothing belonging to different headquarters. We also killed 600 horses and miles, captured 288 prisoners including five colonels, four majors, seven captains, and eight lieutenants. Now we are at the Atlanta & Macon Railroad, turning it upside down, burning the ties and heating the rails so that they are of no use. Six miles of the road was destroyed by the time the work was stopped and our men called to horse. 

        Here again as soon as our work was done, we remained for two hours and as soon as we started, our rear was attacked by 1,000 infantry that had been sent down to within a mile of us. This detained us some four hours longer, giving the Rebels plenty of time to concentrate a sufficient force on the West Point & Macon Railroad to hold us until their cavalry could come on our flanks. In this skirmish, we had one man in Co. L killed and Major John Austin was slightly wounded in his right arm. This was all the regiment lost but some other regiments lost very heavy.

Private Taylor Langford, Co. F, 4th Indiana Cavalry joined the regiment in March 1864. 

          By dark, we were again on the run for now it was to see which force could go to the other railroad first. We arrived there are 9:30 a.m. on the 30th but finding the Rebels there in too strong a force for us, we attempted to go around them but were only led into a trap where some of the hardest cavalry fighting of the war took place. Up to this time, I had not lost a man but here I lost eight men captured on the first charge. In a few minutes afterwards, they charged our pack train and I lost four more men.

          In this charge, they cut off our brigade entirely from our force. We made several charges to gain the command, but finding it useless, we had to give up that part of the work and look for some way to get out of the country and to keep from being captured. This we did by pressing a Negro as a guide to take us to the Chattahoochee River where we finally arrived without losing another man. We arrived at the river at 10 p.m. but found nothing but three small canoes to cross in. We first sent over our saddles in the small boats and then drove our horses into the stream so they could swim out on the other side.

By daylight on the 31st, we had crossed over 281 men and horses, equipment, and arms without the loss of a man and only one horse that was too tired to swim over. Up to this time, I had lost 12 men. After we got over the river, we heard of a small body of our men that had cut out with Colonel Brownlow; Major George Purdy called on me for two good men and horses to ride to Brownlow and halt him, or at least to keep him from burning the bridges in his rear. These two men were captured, making my loss 14. What there was left of us arrived at Marietta yesterday and here today. Our loss in officers is very heavy.

While we were gone, our whole command was five days and nights without anything to eat but apples, green corn (not cooked), watermelons, and green peaches, and in this time we did not sleep any except to cat-nap in our saddles. With all this, I did not hear a word of complaint from any of the men; they were all life and felt sure of success. The total loss in our regiment is 79 officers and men, leaving us with 155 all told, about 100 fighting men. My company now numbers 11 and before the raid, I had 25. This is sad news for some, but we must hope for the best and thank God that none were killed.

I hope before your next issue to be able to report the return of more of the boys. I will keep you posted if any should return. The last I saw of Curt K. Emrie he had left his horse and started through the woods on foot; after this, my orderly sergeant wanted him to take another horse but he would not do it. He was not seen afterwards.

Source:

Letter from First Lieutenant William Henry Harrison Isgrigg, Co. B, 4th Indiana Volunteer Cavalry, Aurora Journal (Indiana), August 18, 1864, pg. 1

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

Cotton Burning on the Levee: A Civilian Witnesses the Federal Seizure of New Orleans

Image
F or one Ohio-born resident of New Orleans, the arrival of Admiral David Farragut’s fleet on April 25, 1862, marked a day of liberation. “Yesterday about half past 1 o’clock, the cry was raised that the Yankees were upon us,” wrote Louis M. Beyers in a letter to his mother. “I started toward the levee where the Federal vessels were said to be lying. Reaching the river, what a sight breaks upon my view. The steamboat William Morrison was one mass of flames. All the shipping was sending forth the most dense black smoke. The Mississippi , a ram which was nearly finished and which, if completed, would have demolished the whole fleet in one hour, floating slowly by with the smoke issuing from every opening and several other important like vessels in various parts of the river, all showing that the torch has been applied to them.” “Together with the thunder which came peal after peal gave a scene of the utmost grandeur. There proudly floating in the smoke and rain were the glorious old ...
Read more

Arming the Union: Federal Contract Model 1861 Springfield Rifle Muskets

Image
A t the outset of the Civil War, the Federal government ran into a serious issue when the Confederacy occupied Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the home of one of the nation’s two armories, and carted the gun making equipment off to Richmond, Virginia. This left just the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts as the sole government-operated entity to produce longarms for the Union army.           But it quickly became apparent that production at Springfield would have to be supplemented, so the War Department pursued two tracks to increase the weapons supply. Agents were dispatched to Europe to purchase suitable weapons from England, France, Austria, Belgium, and Prussia. Over time, these agents acquired hundreds of thousands of European arms of different designs and origins that equipped Federal regiments in the first years of the war.           In the meantime, operations at the Springfiel...
Read more

With the U.S. Christian Commission at Gettysburg

Image
U pon arriving at Gettysburg on Friday, July 10, 1863 with a U.S. Christian Commission delegation from Philadelphia, Reverend W.D. Siegfried’s first task was to escort a mother to find her son’s grave on the battlefield. “We had some little idea of the locality of it given by a comrade of the fallen soldier,” he noted. “After traveling on foot over the battlefield some 6 miles, we came upon a cluster of graves of men from the 72 nd Pennsylvania regiment which suffered terribly. The undaunted mother stood weeping while I read the names of those buried there, marked on rough boards placed at the head of the grave. At last, the name of her son met my eye. I could scarcely pronounce it. But when she heard it- oh, what an expression of grief!” Reverend Siegfried would spend the rest of the day assisting at the 11 th Corps hospital and recorded his impressions of aftermath of Gettysburg in this extraordinary letter which first appeared in the July 18, 1863, edition of the Zanesville Da...
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...
Read more

Hallowed So Much My Throat was Sore: Victory Atop Missionary Ridge with the 2nd Ohio

Image
P ositioned on the far right of the Union assault on Missionary Ridge, Private William Van Horne of the 2nd Ohio described the elation of victory as the men of his brigade overwhelmed the Confederate line with but slight loss.     " I do not think that I ever heard as much noise in my life as there was that night," Van Horne wrote to his parents. "We cheered every general and everybody else. I do not believe I felt in better spirits that I ever did before and hallowed so much that my throat was sore and I believe everyone else’s was the same. Our regiment only lost one or two men wounded. I do not know how so many of us escaped for the bullets were flying so thick that you could almost see them. There was almost no end of shells flying all around us but striking very few."     During the Chattanooga campaign, the 2nd Ohio was Under General William P. Carlin's command of the First Brigade, First Division, 14th Army Corps. Following the losses at Chickamauga, the ...
Read more

Top Posts of 2024

Image
L et’s take a moment to review 2024 on Dan Masters’ Civil War Chronicles.        2024 marked another very busy year with 157 new blog posts, up from 114 last year. The year also saw the publication of two new books, Echoes of Battle Volume 2 and my new campaign study Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign .        The blog is currently at 955 posts and is fast approaching 1,000 post mark; will probably reach that sometime this spring. Blog traffic continues at a very impressive pace for which I am very grateful.        The blog’s focus remains centered on telling the story of the common soldier in the Civil War, North and South. Over the past year, I devoted more page space to telling some of the stories of our Civil War veterans who received the Medal of Honor but the western theater remains my prime focus. I’m excited to share new discoveries with you. The process of research and study remai...
Read more